(September 2000 cont)

It's early morning. The sun is up and the streets of SunnyD have a few less scumbags to worry about for another 24 hours. Most people are still tucked up in bed though, with nothing on their minds other than a few more hours of sleep probably. Bet the Scoobies are all shut-eye still, late night mojo and all gotta take it out of the civilians. Maybe I'm wrong and they've been up all night like me, worrying about the Slayer. Maybe they've spent half the night thinking about why the Slayer had a big old fist-size bruise on her cheek when she showed up at the Magic Box, telling them we'd killed the Big Bad, you can all go home now. Maybe they have been wondering why the other slayer, the Bitch Slayer as Red probably called me, wasn't with on her triumphant return.

Maybe whatever they are thinking or doing right now is all or none of those things, but I guarantee one thing they haven't been doing. They haven't spent the night imagining B in my motel room, wearing my clothes, sleeping in my bed, 'cause I don't think that thought has occurred to any of the Scoobies yet, though I have my suspicions that T-T-Tara knows what's going on. And they haven't been imagining, 'cause not even in my wildest imagination did I think that would happen, B coming to the rescue of one-in-deadly-need-of-rescuing-slayer, and telling her she was sorry, I love you too Faith.

Not that it really happened that way.

She had to deal with her ex-honey first.

"Funny. That's exactly what I'm about to do."

I can't see her 'cause of the bright flashes of white my vision has become. And I can't sense where she is 'cause of the excruciating pain searing the inside of my body with its intense heat. But I can hear her. I hear her determined-to-kick-ass-I-can-even-joke-about-it voice, and she's made the pain ease. It's not gone away entirely, the white heat was still rushing around inside. That's the fun thing about electrocution, the electricity has no-where else to go other than inside you, so it does circuit after circuit before finally burning out. But at least hearing B's beautiful voice meant no more fresh pain. For a little while at least.

"You've come back to save her? How very butch."

Army Boy spat out at the Slayer. Can't imagine B's reaction to that was pretty, but I'm down on the floor and my vision is only slowly returning, so for this part of the show it's definitely audio only.

"Get away from her."

B's smart, I would never have been able to let that butch comment drop so easily.

"Or else what?" Has Army Boy gone insane or something?

"Or else you're going to get your ass kicked by another slayer tonight."

She can remain so calm sometimes when I know by now I'd be tearing his hair out with my teeth.

"For some reason that threat doesn't bother me."

Army Boy is standing over me still, and he's swinging that stick with all the juice in it back and forth, like he's saying 'look what I've got, it's so shiny'. And I wish that I had the slightest bit of strength to grab it from him and finish this before it really got started, but I don't. Most of me is hoping to see B kick his ass anyway, 'cause damnit he really hurt me, and I want some payback for that.

"Oh please, that's supposed to scare me?"

"No Buffy, it's supposed to do this."

Oh fuck.

"aRGH!" That's me screaming again, gone wuss slayer for like the god knows what time, and didn't you say something about rescuing me B?

"Riley!"

Okay I hear B again, how come I don't hear Army Boy-pounding happening? You know that if it had been the reverse, he would never have gotten the chance to inflict pain again. He probably wouldn't ever have walked again either and as I hear B talk, albeit really faded as that last blast of white heat seems to have gone straight to my head and stayed there, I get why the Slayer does things differently to me. Why she was handling this differently to me. Deep down she doesn't hurt people if she doesn't have to, whereas me…well we all know what I can do.

"Riley, it's over. I'm sorry I've hurt you, but we can all walk away from this."

I think I detect movement, I think it's a Slayer shadow I see getting nearer, but then the pain's back and I don't see I only hear again.

"We can walk away and nothing bad will happen, I promise. Just step away from her and drop that, and everything will be okay."

Army Boy is thinking about it. I know 'cause I don't get another blast from him.

"It won't be okay." I barely heard that and I'm right beneath the bastard, so I'm guessing B had to be close too when she responded.

"Of course it will, why wouldn't it be?" Her voice sounds soft, re-assuring. The kind I've heard her use when she's saved some poor kid's ass from a vamp attack, and the shock of it has still almost killed them.

"Because I won't have you, she will." There's venom in his voice, lethal and poised to do damage, just like that stick he's carrying.

"You can't change that."

I don't think he wants to hear that right now B.

"Yes I can."

I cringe, suck in breath that feels burnt, try to steel myself against what's coming. What should have been coming round about now…huh?

"If you try and hurt her again, you know I'll fight you. You know I'll win."

Oh that's why. B is making one last stab at diplomacy. Did I mention how differently B approached this than I?

"Maybe." Arrogant little fuck, isn't he?

"No maybe about it, Army Boy."

I couldn't help myself, even if my voice sounded like I'd just smoked four hundred Marlboros one after the other, and my throat pretty much felt that I'd smoked four hundred Marlboros one after the other. I had to say something, he was dissin' B for one thing.

Should have probably kept my mouth shut though.

"Shut up you fucking piece of trash!"

And he goes for his magic stick again, just as I find the energy from some place I've never been to before and don't particularly want to go to again, as it hurt more than the shocks to actually move of my own accord, to get out of his way, just at the same time as B finally starts to do the hero stuff she is well known for and comes to my aid.

"Riley no!" I hear her scream, and WHAM! She slayer-slams him into the wall, the same one I had done earlier on.

This is one of those times when you can't quite believe what it is you are seeing. And I know living on a Hellmouth you'd think I'd be more than used to that feeling, what with all the demon hunting, and vampires with souls, and werewolves who can play a mean base guitar, and Wiccas who float when they dance and all the other weird wiggy shit I've been witness to over the past few years. But all that don't matter when I try and focus a few feet in front of me, to my left.

I'm laying on my back and there the two of them are, and I can't quite believe what it is I'm seeing, 'cause really, in all the teenage make out fantasies I've been having, and all the real hope and wishing I've been doing where me and B are concerned, I never honestly thought she'd hit him.

So as I see him push back against where she has him pinned to the wall, gaining a little leverage with the move, I think to myself, well that's B's act of heroism over, she ain't really gonna pound him. I mean, it took the appearance of Angelus to make her fight with her last honey, and Army Boy was just acting a little crazed to have been dumped for another chick.

Yeh, that's what my fried brain was going with. That last jolt of pain taking it's time in vacating the premises so maybe not helping with the rational thoughts any, but still B wasn't about to go Bitch Slayer on her ex.

"I warned you not to hurt her again!"

Whoa, haven't ever heard B sound quite so angry before. WHACK she punches Army Boy as he's turning to face her, gets him right in the stomach. Wasn't expecting her to do that gotta admit. And I guess he wasn't expecting it either. His latent soldier genes must have kicked in 'cause he reacted without thinking, without even realising which slayer he was hitting.

He gets this shocked look to his face when his arm pulls back from the uppercut he managed to lay on B. But there is nothing he can do to take it back, and there is nothing stopping the Slayer's fall backwards. Gravity being what it is, and B being as equally surprised as both me and Army Boy were at him actually hitting her. She just wasn't expecting the blow to connect. Didn't think for a moment she'd feel his fist on the outside of her jaw, connecting as solidly as any pissed off vamp, or slayer for that matter.

With the force of the blow and the 'oh my god, he actually hit me' realisation going through her mind, I reckon B shouldn't be too hard on herself when she stops and thinks about how she started falling backwards, losing her Slayer Balance and Slayer Agility for like a second. But a second is all it takes sometimes to seriously screw things up.

And it's not like she could see where she was headed so I don't think she needs to stress over hitting her head on that hammer Army Boy had used on me, which was laying useless and forgotten on the floor until that point. So the unexpected force of Army Boy's fist, the off-balance fall backwards towards the concrete floor, topped by smashing the back of her head against that hammer, I think B can pretty much forgive herself for reacting very un-slayer-like to the whole thing.

She wasn't getting up.

She wasn't even moving.

She was lying there on the floor, a few feet away from me so I could tell what was or was not happening, and the Slayer is not up being a slayer.

Instead she's looking like a broken, beaten woman, and there is a pool of blood beginning to seep out from her dirty blonde hair, from where the hammer connected with her head. A head that had already taken some beating tonight. We'd all taken a beating far worse than we've felt in a long time, and for B I guess that fall was the last straw.

"Buffy, oh god. Buffy wake up."

And suddenly we have the reappearance of Concerned Boyfriend.

Sorry you bastard. It's a little late for that.

I didn't think I'd be able to stand on my own again. Didn't think I'd have the strength to lift my sorry head up again let alone get up on my own two feet. But seeing B hurt. Seeing her laying there, looking so lifeless, looking so broken, something raised up inside me. Something that wasn't connected to being a slayer, though I won't deny the handy rejuvenation package of being one helps my strength. What I was feeling then had everything to do with how I feel for B and nothing to do with how a slayer fights evil on the side of good.

He hurt B. And now he has to pay.

"Get away from her."

B's words coming out of my mouth must have chilled Army Boy. He looks around to me, and actually for the first time that night he had the right look in his eyes when he did.

Fear.

"Faith I…"

WHACK! Didn't give him chance to finish. I didn't give a fuck what he was gonna say anyway. His face goes to the side when my fist connects with his jaw.

"That's for calling me a bitch."

OOMPH! He can't block my knee in time. Doubles over as all the air in his lungs is forced out when I catch him in his midsection.

"That's for hammer pounding me."

THUD! He falls back against the hobbyhorse when I back-kick, followed swiftly with an uppercut to his face, and he finally looks like all the beatings that night are taking their toll.

The adrenaline is back pumping around my body, forcing the last of the white heat out, making my muscles tingle for a different reason, and deep within me I start to feel like a slayer again.

WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!

Repeatedly I beat him, the way he beat me. With my boots, with my fists. Kicking and punching I don't let up.

"And that's"…WHACK…"for hurting"…WHACK … "Buffy!"

There is blood on his face, some on my knuckles where the skin has broken, probably from catching his perfect white teeth. And now I feel as though he has gotten what he deserved, 'cause he's down on his knees, breathing laboured, spitting gobs of mucus and blood on to the floor. And perhaps now he finally understands. There is no stopping this thing between me and B…

…Buffy?

Immediately my focus shifts. Army Boy's existence fades in to the background. I let him stumble and gasp for breath, fallen like he is, 'cause there is something far more important I have to do. I see her from this distance, the blood that pooled out of her head when she made that sick sound as she connected with the floor looks almost black. Her dirty blonde hair even dirtier now, shades of deep red not suiting her, making my stomach flip as I will myself over to her. Afraid of what I'll find as I get closer.

I can't tell if she's breathing from this distance away. And I can't tell if her eyes are open. And I can't hide the panicked cry I give out when I move to her, her face so pale and bruised. I kneel down beside her, my stomach doing back flips, nausea wanting to ride on up and come out, but I fight the urge down. Why the panic? Why the sick feeling racing through me, up to my lungs to the back of my throat, so my gag reflex kicks in? Not because I found B lying lifeless, like I feared I was gonna do walking the few steps over to her. But 'cause I found her breathing. Very shallow breaths, her chest barely rising up then down again. I was so relieved that there was some small evidence that she was okay I couldn't fight the urge to cry any longer.

Getting to be a familiar feeling now, hot salty tears stinging my skin. Where there were cuts on my face from Army Boy's hammer the liquid heat seeped into them like burning acid. I tried to wipe them away but more just kept coming. As much as I wanted it to stop, 'cause I hate feeling out of control, alien in my own skin, and let's face it crying for me is a very alien thing to feel, I just couldn't keep the tears inside me.

B looked so helpless there on the ground, but at least she was breathing. It was both those things and a million others vying for my attention in my head right then, that led me to finally drop my guard where B is concerned. Hanging my head low so the tears flowed straight off my face onto her skin below me. Taking hold of her pale bruised hand that was warm to touch and bringing it up to my lips. I kissed it as I whispered to her.

"I'm never letting go B. Never letting go."

It seemed the most important thing in the world right then to reassure the Slayer of how I felt towards her. Even if the concept was lost on her, what with the un-consciousness and everything. So I let my tears and my pain and my regret at all that had happened between us seep out as I sat there, next to the Slayer. Her hand in mine, her hair that I stroked out of her face, tucking a stray strand behind a delicate ear just like she does sometimes with Dawnie. I might have even looked confused at the gesture, frowning the way I do when something completely vexes me out. Like me being gentle. Not really what I'm known for is it?

But as she laid there, her breathing getting a little stronger, her eyes frowning in amongst the stillness of her body, I realised that what she needed now was me to be gentle with her. 'Cause damnit I haven't been in the past, and from now on I decided things were going to be very different between us.

"Everything is going to be alright B." I leaned down and laid a kiss on her forehead. Just a small soft kiss, not like one I gave in the past in challenge, in anger.

"I love you, Buffy Summers." I whispered, smiling a little to myself at how different her full name sounds coming from me.

"I love you too Faith."

It was barely a whisper. In fact I'm not sure it was even that, so quiet and low when it came out. When it broke through the sudden eerie silence of the smashed up training room. When it got through my tears and misery and settled inside my head.

Did she really just say that? She'd been so quiet I thought maybe I'd imagined it. I guess I could have asked her to repeat herself, to say it again just so I could know for sure that she felt the same as me. But what if she hadn't said those words exactly? What if I'd imagined it 'cause of the heightened state of all my emotions? Remember crying and hurting here. Sure I could've made a mistake, so let's not rock the boat again Faith girl by jumping to the wrong conclusion where B is concerned.

One thing I did know for sure, the Slayer was starting to wake up. I felt pressure round the hand that was holding B's, and as I look down I see her fingers curling around mine. As if she was struggling to take hold in this world again and the first thing that she caught on to was me.

"Faith?" Her voice was quiet still. She squinted her eyes a few times trying to focus.

"Yeh, it's me." My voice was thick with the tears that I had to choke back.

"Faith." This time she didn't say it like it was a question. She opened her eyes some more even though I could tell it made her head hurt to do so, and I thought I saw her smile a little when she focused on who was sitting next to her, holding her hand.

"Are you okay?" That's the Slayer all right, always thinking of others when she should be thinking of herself.

"Five by five. You?" I'm starting to feel a little less teary now, a little less panicked.

"Head hurts." She tries to sit up, realises it's a mistake almost immediately and winces hard in pain. I know just how you feel B, remembering that steel girder I got whacked with. I wince in sympathy for the Slayer and try to get her to be still again.

"Hey easy does it there champ." I put my free hand underneath her shoulders so as she lies back down she kinda slumps against me. And if the close contact between us was at all unwarranted, if I felt that B didn't want me holding her hand, bringing her into my body keeping her warm, then I would have stopped right there. But as she slumped against me she drew the hand that was holding hers across the front of her body, so in effect I held her in a very loose embrace, an embrace it seemed the Slayer needed as much as I.

"Can we go home now?" She whispered. The fight and strength had finally gone out of her I could tell by the way she sounded so hopeful with her question.

"Sure." I replied, dropping a kiss on her head, avoiding where it was all bloody and painful.

I didn't want to bring it up but I had to ask, and I was really conscious of not saying or doing anything that would screw things up between me and B again, so it was best that we got that cleared up first.

"We can get you cleaned up a bit, if you're worried about Mrs S seeing you like this?"

Okay so it wasn't exactly a straightforward way of asking it, but I wasn't about to do my usual line of 'your place or mine?' I mean let me have some frickin' credit.

B half-smiles at me, closes her eyes and bites her top lip. Like she was steeling herself against the pain that had flared up again inside, and I get a little more panicked that B is really hurt. Needn't have worried about that so much though, turns out she was steeling herself to say this.

"Actually Faith, I was hoping you'd take me home with you."

I barely hear her 'cause her voice is so soft and quiet, but I don't think this time I imagined her saying that, and it's all I can do to not break out into that goofy spaz smile I had on my face after I'd kissed the Slayer in the warehouse earlier on. Instead I go with.

"Sure."

I couldn't hold the smile completely back, nor stop myself running my thumb over the top of her hand, a slow caress that I'd dreamt of doing so many times in the past.

"If that's what you want?" I still gave her every chance she needed so she could back out if she didn't want to be near me. But she just took hold of my hand and squeezed it tighter, like she did when she first saw it was me hovering above her as she woke up.

"It's what I want."

Okay don't need to tell me twice I thought to myself. I eased her up gently and crouched down beside her. She looked confused at me for a few seconds, but as she tried to stand up herself and realised the pain in her head wasn't going to let her, the confused frown melted into a slightly worried look.

"You can't carry me, you're hurt too." She raised a hand to where that hammer had opened up the gash above my eye. It had stopped bleeding, but I'm guessing didn't look exactly pretty.

"Sure I can. Slayer Strength remember?" I protested with a sly smirk to my lips and amazingly she gave in to me immediately. Or maybe it was the fact I didn't really give her a choice, as by the time I'd finished telling her I'd slipped an arm underneath her legs and held one firmly around her waist.

With a deep breath bracing my legs slightly for her weight, not that weight with B is really an issue, I picked her up slowly, coming to my full height and settling her body against me. She moved her arms around my neck, making herself as comfortable as possible, I urged her to rest her head against my shoulder, making sure I'd picked her up so the side that had got injured wasn't going to be knocking against me as we walked.

"You okay?" I asked her.

She smiled a funny little crooked grin at me, one that my heart leapt on the moment it saw it and took a snapshot of it so I know exactly how that smile looks now, hours after the fact.

"Better now." B replied.

I just smiled in return, doing the not trusting thing with words again, wanting nothing to ruin this moment between us.

I began to slowly carry her out of the training room, avoiding the debris on the floor. One bit of debris I'd completely forgotten about was leaning up against the legs of the hobbyhorse, nursing a bruised and bloodied face. I'd not done enough to cause him permanent damage, even though I could have done. Even though I wanted to. But he still looked a pathetic sight and I was afraid when B saw him she'd go cheerleader-girlfriend on me again.

Should have known better really. This is B we're talking about after all. She always goes and surprises me.

"Is he going to be alright?" She was looking over my shoulder at him, 'cause I wasn't going to stop by where he was to let her see him in close up.

"Bruised and battered, but he'll live." I managed to crook my head a little to see if she was still staring at him. She was a bit, but he was also staring back at her, and I wondered if he was going to start trouble again.

"I'm sorry you're hurt Riley, but it didn't have to happen this way." B's voice was loud enough for him to hear her. And as I carried her out of the door Army Boy's response was lost in the space of the empty shop, and all I could hear was B's contented, level breathing as she rested her head on my shoulder.

And all I cared about then was taking the Slayer home, with me.